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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCFE minutes 100917Attachment 1 Orange County Commission for the Environment Meeting Summary October 9, 2017 Whitted Building, 300 West Tryon Street, Hillsborough Present: Lynne Gronback (Chair), Bill Kaiser (V-Chair), Bill Newby, Marshall Gray, Sheila Thomas-Ambat, Matt Crook, May Becker, Jeremy Marzoula, Bradley Saul Absent: Peter Cada, Jeanette O’Connor, Alan Perry, Will Stanley Staff: Kim Livingston, Brennan Bouma I. Call to Order - Gronback called the meeting to order at 7:34. II. Additions or Changes to Agenda –Livingston requested that the group nominate a CFE member to the Intergovernmental Parks Working Group to fill a current vacancy. Kaiser offered before the meeting began; therefore, this item was not added to the agenda. III. Approval of Draft Minutes from September 11, 2017. Kaiser motioned to approve the minutes as written. Gray seconded. Minutes were approved unanimously. IV. Lands Legacy Action Plan Update - Livingston clarified the background information on the Lands Legacy Plan update. Primarily through the effort of Marzuola and Kaiser, the CFE has provided a good amount of text guidance for the update that staff may need to pare down. Kaiser and Marzuola give consent for condensing the text and Gronback joined them in highlighting the content that was the most important to them to emphasize. The CFE agreed that the priorities in the text provided by Marzuola and Kaiser are the top CFE priorities for the next Lands Legacy Action Plan. V. Recruitment – Kaiser reported that there are currently two vacancies and Becker and Cada will go off the CFE in December creating two additional vacancies. He stressed the importance of recruiting qualified candidates to fill the vacancies. Kaiser suggested that the ad for CFE membership should be posted on the website and social media more often. He suggested that all current members recruit others that they may know who are qualified, and if they are not interested, ask if they could suggest others. Kaiser suggested making it part of a CFE members job to recruit new members. Bill Ward (guest interested in becoming a member) recommended providing as much information to applicants as possible. Bouma clarified that some positions are restricted to certain technically expertise but not geographically restricted. Attachment 1 Kaiser suggested that applicants need to provide more information/specificity to their applications. Multiple members stated that they had put up flyers in various locations. Gronback offered to hang flyers in her place of business. Bouma offered to hang flyers in extension offices, community centers, and agricultural centers in an attempt to attract a variety of candidates, such as farmers. Marzoula sent the most current flyer to the group via email. Crook suggested adding language to the CFE advertisements that asks people to reach out to others they know that might be interested in becoming a member. Gronback suggested having a meeting with an open invitation to people who are interested in joining. Bill Ward gave information about himself and stated he was interested in joining the CFE. VI. UNC Capstone Students to Assist with SOE Report - Bouma stated that two important aspects of the SOE are the letter grades for the specific indicators and the format of the report as it relates to whom it is for and how they would like to receive it. He brought to the CFE a potential opportunity to work with 8 -10 UNC undergraduate students in a capstone course from February to April 2018 to develop aspects of the SOE 2019. Bouma asked if the CFE would like the assistance from the students to collect data for the SOE 2019. This data would then be used by the CFE to create the report. Bouma stressed the importance of providing the students with a solid foundation and as much upfront information as possible. He suggested we identify who the audience will be and the purpose of the SOE 2019. Marzoula recommended that climate change and environmental justice be added to the indicators. Gronback asked how climate change would be added to the report; would it be in each category or an overarching category? Kaiser suggested noting how each of the indicators will impact climate change. Crook stated that indicators need a quantitative measure and asked how to measure qualitative indicators. Bouma stated that there are groups that provide ways to quantify that type of data. How indicators are measured was discussed by the group. Newby recommended that the CFE plug into different planning department’s data to provide information for indicators. Bouma suggested the students could look into these data sources. Bouma asked Becker to provide the group with any insight from the previous SOE development. Becker advised identifying the current conditions and the trends. She urged the group to continue with the trends to assess change over time from previous SOEs. Saul suggested the CFE record in the SOE what data needs to be collected that is currently unavailable. Attachment 1 Gronback stated that the next meeting will focus on clarifying the audience and the purpose of the SOE 2019. VII. CFE Committee Meetings - Committees had breakout meetings and discussed indicators for the SOE 2019. VIII. Updates and Information Items – information on the following items was provided:  Continuing Action Items from previous CFE meetings  SOE 2019 Planning  Climate Change Q&A IX. Adjournment – Kaiser motioned to adjourn, and Marzoula seconded. Meeting adjourned at 9:25.